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Burkina Faso: Plan underway for transitional authority to guide country to elections
Opposition parties, civil society groups and religious leaders adopted a plan on Sunday for a transitional authority to guide Burkina Faso to elections, after a popular uprising forced longtime president Blaise Compaore from power.
Compaore resigned and fled the country last month, following mass protests against his efforts to change the constitution to seek re-election in 2015 after 27 years in power. Burkina Faso is under pressure to quickly return to civilian rule or face possible sanctions.
The charter agreed on Sunday, after days of talks in the capital Ouagadougou, calls for the creation of a 90-member transitional parliament. An interim government is proposed, whose 25 members will not be permitted to stand in presidential and legislative elections expected to take place late next year.
It is a text that seems to unite everyone. Now the sticking point is the choice of the man who will preside over the transition,” Roch Marc Christian Kabore, head of the opposition People’s Movement for Progress (MPP) party, told reporters.
The military have pledged to quickly hand over power to a civilian transitional leader.
The 54-nation African Union on Monday gave the military a two-week deadline to return power to civilians or face punishment.
The West African regional bloc ECOWAS on Thursday called on the international community not to impose sanctions on Burkina Faso in view of ongoing regional mediation efforts led by Senegal’s President Macky Sall.
Burkina Faso, which is emerging as one of Africa’s top gold producers, has in the recent past played a major mediation role in crises in neighboring Mali and Ivory Coast.
Source: Reuters